The Velveteen Rabbit Theory
by raspberryseedz
Summary: Updated at long last!  "What is real?" asked the Rabbit one day... "Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you." Buzz Lightyear is made real. AU.
1. Mark Balfre

**A/N:** There are two stories that have brought me to shameless, uncontrollable tears, especially as an adult: one, of course, is the final scene of Toy Story 3 and the other is The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams. Both are very similar in subject matter and I wanted to see if I could combine them without completely rehashing their narratives. There's probably a lot more I could've done with this but, I think I'm going to stick with a Buzz/Jessie centered fic, it's a lot easier for me to focus on one or two characters rather than doing something with the whole cast (plus, I'm a sap and it's just what I wanted to write). I apologize if this chapter seems too short, I'm still kind of experimenting with writing styles and the like. As always, feedback is appreciated!

XXXXXXXXXX

_"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by__  
__side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does__  
__it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"_

_"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that__  
__happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just__  
__to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."_

_"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit._

_"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When__  
__you are Real you don't mind being hurt."_

_"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit__  
__by bit?"_

_"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It__  
__takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who__  
__break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.__  
__Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved__  
__off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very__  
__shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are__  
__Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."_

-The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

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THE VELVETEEN RABBIT THEORY

XXXXXXXXXX

Buzz wakes feeling stiff and profoundly groggy. There's a kink in his spine and an ache surrounding his head and when he opens his eyes he has to clamp them shut again to block out the light shining in his face. There's a rustling at his left and a beeping noise at his right and dread grows heavy in his chest as he realizes he isn't waking up in Bonnie's room and he doesn't know how he got here or how to get back.

When his eyes adjust to the light he realizes he's been strapped down in a hospital bed surrounded by men in white chattering rapidly at computer screens and monitors and at his bedside. He shouts at them, demands to know where he is and what has become of his friends. They mutter incomprehensible jargon at him, something about an agreement, something about staying calm, but it isn't until he notices himself, his own form, that he stops struggling.

His suit is gone. Replaced with a blue cotton t-shirt and jeans and the natural proportions of a human. His mind takes a second to jumpstart, all at once recalling the clothes, the room, the drive over to the facility, the injection…

"Mr. Balfre," one of the white figures addresses him, hands outstretched. "I know you must be confused, I assure you everything will be explained…"

"No, I-I don't… I don't need an explanation. I'm fine. I remember."

That seems to be enough for the gentleman and he motions for the others to start removing the wires and monitors and the IV needle while he retrieves a wallet and a set of keys.

Mark Balfre stares at his own driver's license like it's a counterfeit. He tries not to let it show how embarrassed he is, that for a moment he actually confused his own identity. This was his face. The brown crew cut and the long ears and the full-rimmed glasses, he steals a glance at his reflection in a powered down monitor to be sure, all matched the photo and all were his.

Though he didn't need any sort of photo to remember what Buzz Lightyear's face was supposed to look like.

XXXXXXXX

They have him use the restroom and shower and they pick him up a cheeseburger from Burger King and Mark marvels at how little his appetite actually is considering he's been asleep for two days. The handful of doctors and technicians shed their white coats and he's led by two of them through several corridors of the building to a smaller room with carpeting and a round table and at least eight chairs.

They want to know about Buzz. And not just what Buzz looked like and acted like but what it felt like to actually _be_ him. Subconsciously, of course. When he asks them why they remind him of their research, the experiment he volunteered for, the system of linked dreaming and the information they need to gather to make an educated comparison between their subjects' experiences. They share a laptop between them, but type notes only rarely and Mark recalls some sort of waiver he signed allowing the recording of his interview.

Following a slew of questions, some quite detailed, concerning Buzz and toy-hood they begin to ask about Andy and then Woody and then Jessie and Bullseye and Potatohead and Mark finds that even in memory they seem so incredibly life-like.

Something suddenly occurs to him and he asks the doctors about the other volunteers. Did everyone he knew in that dream have a human counterpart, sitting in some other room recounting the same story? They respond that participants had been waking up at different times and that all their information was to be kept confidential.

The interview comes to a close. The three men shake hands and Mark promises to return in a week for further debriefing for the experiment.

XXXXXXXXXX

By the time Mark arrives at home it's nearly eleven, or as Buzz would say, twenty-three hundred hours. He isn't sure why, but the thought of going to sleep makes him a little apprehensive. He lounges in front of the TV and scrolls through channels for over twenty minutes before settling on some cop show he has never seen before. Sometime during the episode he falls asleep on his couch and wakes up the next morning profoundly disappointed he can't remember what he dreamt.


	2. That You Have but Slumber'd Here

_If we shadows have offended,  
Think but this, and all is mended,  
That you have but slumber'd here  
While these visions did appear._

_ -A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare_

XXXXXXXXXX_  
_

He returns to work that following day. Four people casually ask him how his weekend went and he isn't so sure what to say. How do you explain to people you've never seen outside the office complex you spent most of the weekend sleeping on a hospital bed? He merely tells them he had gotten a lot of rest, it wasn't a total lie, and he doubted it would make much of a difference to them either way.

A group of interns are shuffled through the office in some kind of tour. Mark probably wouldn't have registered their presence at all if not for one intern with waist-length red hair that passes by his desk. She must've been a natural brunette, her eyebrows are too dark and the contrast makes her hair look too red, too flat.

He eats his roast beef sandwich in the corner of the break room with Kurt like he does every day. Kurt has a lot of complaining to do concerning Henderson's recent promotion, which Kurt thinks is undeserved, and the intern they've saddled him with that obviously doesn't know how to use a spreadsheet. He starts in on his neighbor's noisy black labrador when he abruptly stops.

"Hey, Mark? Earth to Mark!"

"Huh…"

"What's wrong, man? You've been staring off into space." Kurt eyes him suspiciously. "I'm not boring you, am I?"

"Uh, sorry. I was just thinking…" Mark takes Kurt's silence as an indication to continue. "Do you have any of you have any of your old toys, Kurt?"

Kurt's face twisted. "Old toys?"

"Yeah, like old action figures or trains or comic books…"

"Comic books? Man, my house is cluttered enough without all that crap."

"Oh. So you don't have any?"

"Nah, are you starting a collection or something? Having a yard sale?"

"No… no I was just curious…" Mark considers elaborating, but it was clear Kurt wasn't interested in talking about his childhood. Somehow they get back to the topic of Kurt's neighbors, though Mark is more occupied with his own thoughts than absorbing Kurt's.

XXXXXXXXXX

The rest of the day goes by like a dull crawl. The instant five-o'clock hits he sprints to the parking lot. He cuts about fifteen minutes of rush hour traffic out of his drive home, but when he gets there he's at a loss of what to do with himself. As a toy they had rough days, slow days, even years where they had nothing to occupy themselves with, but at least then they had company. Buzz always had people in his situation he could talk to. Mark forcefully reminds himself that what felt like years only amounted to two days in reality.

He powers up his computer and spends several hours looking up old comic books and model airplanes and toy rifles. He smiles when he recognizes a few toys he used to own on eBay and saves their pictures. He also finds a vintage Etch-a-Sketch and several variations of the Potatoheads and a remote racecar that looks an awful lot like how he remembers RC. His searches for Woody's Round-up Gang and Buzz Lightyear prove fruitless, as does his search for a Tri-County area. He wasn't really expecting to find anything, but he still can't help feeling a bit disappointed.

XXXXXXXXXX

By Wednesday, he's exhausted his interest in internet searches and the idle chatter at work and reruns of cop shows. He can't shake the feeling of unease, the tightness in his chest, somewhat similar to the feeling he got after watching a certain television commercial in the dream. Only now there was no Woody to reassure him of his place in the world. He phones the research facility and when the receptionist asks him what he wants he isn't really sure how to respond. He needs to talk to someone, not like the earlier debriefing session with strangers, but with someone who understands. Someone who might be able to piece together what made reality so empty and the dream so… real.

The receptionist is about to blow him off when Mark quickly blurts the name Cyrus Anderson.

"I'm sorry, what?" the woman asks, stringing the words together in one hurried breath.

"I want to talk to Cyrus Anderson," he repeats firmly, adding a polite 'please' for good measure.

After a short pause, she mutters, "Hold, please," and he spends the next fourteen minutes listening to a loop of a synthesized piano rendition of Chopin's Prelude in C major.

"This is Dr. Anderson." The blunt voice finally sounds.

"Cyrus, this is Mark… Mark Balfre… from the Davis High School reunion…"

"Ah, yes, I remember," the man's voice instantly brightens. "Mark, I never did get to personally thank you for volunteering, it's difficult to find people willing to give up their lives and their families for science, even if it is just a weekend. We're still in the process of reviewing your notes, absolutely fascinating material…"

"Cyrus, I… I know this request is going to seem strange but, I need speak with some of the other volunteers."

The voice at the other end goes silent, but Mark can almost hear the gears in Cyrus' head turning, processing his request, carefully deciding how to respond to it. "Is there something wrong, Mark?" he finally says.

"No… well, yes… I don't know…" Mark stutters, removing his glasses to rub at the bridge of his nose. "In the dream everything felt so real and I just…"

"You wish to cross-reference your experience with the others?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

Cyrus clicks his tongue and sighs. "Mark, you cannot affirm your own reality based on the testimony of others. Besides, I can guarantee you all the other participants are complete strangers to you, they could not distinguish between your conscious and subconscious mind…"

"They were _in my mind_, Cyrus!" Mark interrupts, "I need to know what they saw, I… I need to know what was my subconscious and what wasn't."

"We can try to determine that, Mark, but we need time…"

"I need someone who understands, Cyrus. I've been trying to live my old life but I feel like I'm living in some kind of void…" Mark finds himself stopping, whatever thought he had previously now lost. He had never told anyone anything like this before, never had he expressed such a strong dissatisfaction with anything, not his boring job or his empty house or his distant family; mostly because he never really realized himself how dissatisfied he was.

It takes Cyrus three tries at Mark's name to get him to snap out of his reverie.

"Mark, I'd like you to take tomorrow off and come down to the facility, if that's at all possible. I can't arrange for you to speak with the other participants, unfortunately, you've all signed confidentiality agreements. I'm sure you remember, no information regarding the volunteers may be disclosed to anyone outside of my staff. However, I think it would be beneficial if you and I talked."

Mark feels his stomach drop. Cyrus still didn't understand, and what was worse he probably was under the impression that he was headed for a mental breakdown and needed psychiatric help.

"I… I don't know if I can get the day off," the sentence sounds hollow, even to him. "I'll try to come down."

"Very good, you're scheduled to come in Saturday for another debriefing but if we can meet sooner I think it will help."

"I'll try, Cyrus, I'll try."

XXXXXXXXXX

A/N:

-Don't read too much into the "science" (or lack thereof) with all this dream stuff. I know it doesn't hold up, for the sake of the story, let's say this all happens in the same universe as Inception only without all the illegal-ness and mind-theft.

-Chopin's Prelude in C Major is also called Reunion. It's a short little tune, I don't know if anybody would actually use it for music on hold but I included it for, um… foreshadowing purposes.

-How's the chapter length? Too short? Too long? Too obvious? Too vague? (lol, actually I'm not gonna worry about the last one. Stuff that's vague is usually vague for a reason.)


	3. Enter Kate

_I know you, I walked with you,_

_Once upon a dream._

_ -Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty_

Getting the following day off work is easy, getting the motivation to drive several hours to the research facility is not. Mark eventually does convince himself to go, though he doubts the trip will do him any good.

He wonders what Buzz would do in this situation, having already dealt with one delusion and adjusting to the world as a toy. Maybe what he was going through was no different; he was waking up from a delusion and just needed to give himself time to adjust… or a reason to adjust.

He sits in his parked Audi with the engine off and his hands still on the steering wheel, thinking. He wishes he was back in the dream, where he knew who he was and his family knew who he was and knew how to be there for him. How long had it been since he'd thought about his own family, his real family. The father living on the opposite coast and the cousins he only saw on holidays and the old friends he'd lost touch with. One of the reasons he had been a perfect candidate for the experiment was because nobody would miss him if he disappeared for a weekend, dead to the real world.

After nearly ten minutes, he leaves his car and walks inside the research lab. The receptionist greets him while still staring at her computer screen and when he tells her whom he's here to see she politely waves a French manicured hand at the nearest chair. The lobby is hideously whitewashed and has a huge ceiling that seems to make the silence even more deafening than it should be. He tries to start a conversation with the woman regarding the overcast weather and she barely responds. He compliments her strawberry-blonde hair and she remarks with a sideways glance that it's dyed that color. He tries again with a comment on the purple-blue fish swimming in a little glass bowl on her desk and she smiles a little.

"Pretty, isn't it? It's a Betta fish. The lady who works in that pet shop down the street got it for me."

"A friend of yours?" he asks, trying to keep the conversation going.

"No. Just talked with her a little before she went in to see Cyrus. She said she felt bad I was working a Saturday," the receptionist snickers, "Like I don't _always_ work Saturdays."

Something clicks in Mark's mind, a fuse that sparks and lights and quickly becomes devoured in flame despite how the rational part of him tries to snuff it out.

"This past Saturday?" he asks. That was the day this whole mess started.

"Yeah."

"And she works at a pet store?"

"Yeah. The little one down the street, next to the Toys R Us." Mark shoots out of his chair before she even finishes her sentence. "Hey, where are you…"

"Sorry, could you tell Cyrus that our meeting will have to wait, something just came up."

Before she even registers what he said he is out the door, making a beeline for his Audi, the receptionist staring blankly after him.

XXXXXXXXXX

It occurs to Mark over and over that he's being irrational and impulsive. He has no reason to assume that this random woman who gives away Betta fish is connected to his situation at all. And yet here he is, driving 50 miles-per-hour in a 35 miles-per-hour zone, swerving into the parking lot of a modest strip mall. As he walks toward the red and white "Pet Store" sign, oversights begin to weigh on him like a set of anvils. He doesn't know what this woman is supposed to look like, or if she's working today, he didn't even think to ask her name. Not that the receptionist would've given him her name, but he could have at least asked.

His mind is still whirring as he passes through the shelves of pet supplies toward the back of the store, thoroughly ignoring the acne-laden teenage boy at the front desk. The back wall has a few fish tanks pressed against it and a large cage full of hamsters and a door marked 'Employees Only' and his chest tightens as he realizes that, other than the kid at the desk, there's no one else in the store.

He thinks about leaving, until he notices he can hear high-pitched barking noises from behind the door and a laugh that he knows he's heard before. He freezes, every piece of him hoping to hear that sound again, hoping he didn't just imagine it.

Another dog barks and then… there, there's that laugh! He pushes through the door without even thinking.

The room is a small kennel, obviously for the bigger animals, dogs and cats, and about half a dozen puppies, enclosed in a corner, climbing over each other to reach the outstretched hand of the woman kneeling next to their fence. She turns to face him as soon as he walks through the door and he freezes again.

It's her.

After all the confusion, all the doubt he's been harboring for the past several days, he knows in an instant that it's her. He doesn't recognize her face, her light brown hair that's much too short to be pulled back, or the lavender color shading her round, gray eyes, but something in her posture, the texture of her voice, the very essence of her… he _knows _it's her.

She stands, he guesses she's at least an inch taller than he is, and asks, "Can I help you?" in a tone that suggests she's already had to repeat herself. He opens his mouth and then closes it again awkwardly. What could he say? Why didn't he think of something to say? Should he introduce himself as Mark? Mark is a stranger to her, why should she care about Mark? As Buzz? _'Hey, remember me, my subconscious is madly in love with your subconscious'_, that would go over well. His mind is reeling and she's right in front of him now, staring down at him with her brow furrowed and a hand running through her hair.

"I _know_ you, don't I?" she says slowly, as if she can't even believe it herself.

"Ye… Yeah…" his voice cracks. "I'm, uh… I'm Mark. Well, my name is Mark. Mark Balfre."

"Kate." She smiles the open, lopsided smile that only belongs to her. "Kate Sollis."

"Do you… want to grab lunch? Or coffee, or darjeeling… or, or… something…?" he trails off.

"Aren't you sweet," she breaks eye contact only long enough to check her watch. "I have lunch in half an hour. Can you wait till then?"

"Sure!" he says a little too quickly. "I mean, that's fine… I mean…"

"There's a Chipotle across the street. D'you wanna meet me there?"

"Alright. In half an hour?"

"Half an hour."

"Okay, I'll, um… I'll see you then." He starts to back towards the door only to find it opens the other way.

She laughs a little. "Okay… Bye, Buzz."

He leaves the store and finds he can't stop smiling.

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A/N:

I have been informed that the colorful fish colloquially called Betta fish are technically Siamese Fighter Fish, most people seem to have a better understanding of what Betta fish are so I kept that name.

Chipotle is a Mexican grill with deeee-licious burritos/tacos. It probably would've made more sense to have them meet at a more Spain-esque restaurant but I personally don't know of any places like that common to the US (I live in So. California, we have nothing but Mexican food, what more do you want from me? xD)

On names: I intentionally chose names that sounded nothing like their toy counterparts but still called back to their personalities a little bit, especially concerning the way they act toward each other. The name Balfre comes from the surname Balfe which translates out to "stammering" in it's Gaelic, Latin, and Norman forms. Sollis comes from the nickname "Sol" describing someone with a sunny disposition. Their first names I thought of early on and they just sorta stuck, Mark as a name has military connotations, which fits Buzz perfectly, and Kate means "pure" in Greek.


	4. Until Tomorrow

**A/N: Ugggg… I'm so sorry this took so long to get out, you guys. I got totally bombarded with school and emotional rollercoasters of my own and basically couldn't work on anything else till the semester ended. I apologize! I'm gonna try and get as much of this out as I can before the next semester starts. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated.**

_And goodbye until tomorrow,_

_Goodbye until the next time you call,_

_And I will be waiting, I will be waiting._

_Goodbye until tomorrow,_

_Goodbye til I recall how to breathe,_

_And I have been waiting, I have been waiting for you._

_-Goodbye Until Tomorrow _

_from The Last Five Years_

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"Do you remember the race-car track?"

"How could I forget!" She exclaimed after swallowing a bite of her burrito. "Do you remember watching the World Series on that little old TV?"

"Hey, to us that might as well have been a high-definition wide-screen."

"Rex and Potatohead had to stand in for an antenna! How is that high-definition?" She laughed.

"Well in proportion it's bigger than the TV I've got now."

"Yeah, but now you don't have to step on the remote to change the channel."

"Assuming you can find the remote."

She laughed again and shook her head. "I seem to recall several television remote hunting expeditions in Andy's room. Isn't it strange that even in dreams those things are impossible to keep track of."

She says it so casually but the fingers that rake through her hair betray her. It's such a strange thing, reminiscing with a complete stranger. He must've called her Jessie half a dozen times by now and she's called him Buzz so often he wonders if she's been avoiding his name altogether to avoid confusion and if he should do the same.

They speak little of their real lives. He tells her about the satellite company he works for after she cracks a joke about Buzz working for NASA and she tells him about the pet store she's been running for awhile.

"I like your hair," she says, pointedly. "Though to be honest it is kinda weird. I expected you to be bald."

"I expected you to be a red-head," he counters. "I don't look a thing like Buzz anyway so I hardly see how it matters."

"Y'know, now that I think about it you do kinda look like him." She regards him with a knuckle against her chin, one eyebrow quirked up in amusement.

"I look like who?"

"Buzz, silly."

He wants to laugh but feels like he shouldn't. "No, I don't."

"You do so. You have his chin."

"I, what?"

"That's it, it's the chin. It's got the dimple and everything."

"I don't have a dimple on my chin."

"Yes, you do." She reaches over the table; taking his jaw in one hand so she can pull him closer, get a better look. "It's riiiiiiight there!" Her thumb comes down on the center of his chin and sits there. Mark suddenly feels very self-conscious.

She takes his silence as an indication that she's won and settles back in her seat. "Have you seen Woody, or anybody?" she asks, rolling up the last section of her burrito to save it. Mark suddenly realizes he's hardly touched his. He sadly tells her no, he doesn't know where any of the others are or who they are, and it was by pure luck he found her in the first place.

Her eyelids lower in disappointment for a second and then she brightens. "I know where Bullseye is! C'mon, I'll introduce you." And with no other warning she links her arm in his and ushers him out the restaurant and across the street.

"We go way back, Bullseye and I." she says, "I've known him since he was a baby." They reenter the pet shop and for a second Mark thinks he's about to be introduced to the teenager manning the cash register. She leads him instead to the back of the shop, through the Employee's Only door where all the dogs and cats are kept, and a moment later there's a chocolate Labrador retriever barking excitedly at him and pawing at his pant leg.

"Mark, meet Bullseye." Kate kneels down to scratch at the dog's coat affectionately. Mark sits cross-legged next to her only to have Bullseye crawl halfway into his lap, sniffing at his coat and his hair. He pats the animal awkwardly, not really used to being around dogs. Kate looks on amusedly for a minute and finally decides to pull Bullseye back into her own lap before Mark falls over.

"You had your pet included in the experiment?"

"No, not all. He was staying at my vet's for the weekend. I think I brought him in through my subconscious, you know? I needed him there and I just sort of dreamed him in."

Mark isn't quite sure what to make of that. Not that he doubts Kate's theory, per se, but he isn't sure if he has anything from his own life that he can connect to that other world so directly. It makes him feel a bit sad.

XXXXXXXX

If there is one thing Mark hates more than staff meetings, it's Friday staff meetings. The simple fact that the weekend is so close and he's stuck listening to some pointless powerpoint presentation on the proper documentation to check out a stapler puts him in a bit of a depressed mood. He's struggling not to nod off when his phone starts to vibrate. It's Kate.

_What're you up to?_

_ Trying not to die of boredom._

_ Slow work day?_

_ Worse. Staff meeting. Presenter speaks in leagal-ese. And in monotone._

_ I thought Buzz adored leagal-ese._

_ Buzz liked procedure and efficiency. This is too much of one and not enough of the other._

_ I believe the phrase is 'red tape'._

_ I believe the phrase is 'mind-numbing'._

_ Lol. Poor baby._

_ No, seriously, I've been watching this fly buzz around the windowsill to entertain myself._

_ Does it do any tricks?_

_ No, it's been too quiet for awhile… I think it fell asleep!_

_ Hahahaha_

_ You wouldn't be laughing if you were forced to listen to this…_

_ It's called Schadenfreude. Taking pleasure in the misfortune of others._

_ You're a horrible human being._

_ I try._

_ Lol. How's Bullseye?_

_ Cabin feverish. We've been stuck in the store all day._

_ Sucks…_

_ Yeah. I owe him a walk around the park. You want to come? If you survive the bore-fest that is?_

His train of thought is interrupted by an obnoxious hiss delivered from Kurt's direction. Mark shoots him a glare.

"Hey, if I have to pay attention to this garbage then so do you!" Kurt whispers.

"I am paying attention. It's called multitasking."

"You couldn't multitask if your life depended on it. And it's not fair that you get to enjoy yourself while the rest of us have to suffer."

"Schadenfreude."

"What?"

"Nevermind."

Kurt looks at him as if he just grew a set of purple antenna. Mark decides to ignore him and sends Kate a _Sure thing _before shutting his phone.

"Who are you talking to anyway?"

"A friend."

"That eliminates everyone in the sales department."

"She doesn't work here."

"_She?_ You're talking to a _chick?_"

Mark gets a vague impression he should be offended. "Yes, she is a woman."

"And she doesn't work here? She isn't from one of those online dating harems…"

"Kurt…"

Kurt throws his palms up in mock defense. "I'm just looking out for you, man."

Mark briefly wonders what Kurt would think of how he and Kate actually met. "I appreciate that but there's no need."

Kurt snorts. "She a good kisser?"

"We're _friends_. It's not like that." Mark blurts, probably a little too quickly.

"So she's available. Mind hooking me up…" The very idea is alarming and wrong and stirs bile in his stomach.

"No."

"No, you won't hook me up or no, you don't mind…"

"No, I won't hook you up!"

"Alright, alright. Sheesh. Would you reconsider if she has a sister or a cousin or a really tall friend…"

Before Mark can respond, his phone goes off. It isn't another text, it's a phone call and he has to excuse himself from the meeting. Mere words cannot adequately express his relief.

"Hello…"

"Mark, it's Cyrus. Got a pretty good excuse for blowing me off yesterday?"

XXXXXXXXXX

Bullseye spots him first, jumping up against his thighs and barking excitedly until Kate catches up to him. Her short haircut is mussed and windswept and her cheeks are flushed as if she's been running a while and there's a huge smile on her face when she greets him. He kneels down with her to scratch at Bullseye's ears.

"He looks happy to be out."

"Very." She lights up, as if that statement also applies to her. "Someone called in and I had to cover her shift so we missed our walk this morning. He couldn't wait to get here." The dog climbs into her lap, giving the side of her face a wet, sloppy lick.

"So, I see you made it through the staff meeting from hell," she laughs.

He laughs with her. "Barely. I wouldn't have made it without you distracting me…"

"Oh, I was distracting you, was I?"

The tone in her voice is teasing and coy and his insides freeze up as he scrambles to reanalyze the full implications of what he just said. "Not that… I mean, you weren't _too_ distracting, you were… I mean… I can multitask…"

She bites down on a giggle. Mark swallows unconsciously.

"I thought I'd never hear that stammer again," she says to herself, grabbing his arm to drag him up with her as she stands. "C'mon, I'll show you why I named him Bullseye."

She produces a Nurf football that looks as if it's been through several maulings and gives it a good throw. Bullseye takes off after it; nose honed in on its target, and tackles the toy just before it hits the ground. She has Mark throw the next one, which doesn't go quite as far but Bullseye seems to enjoy taking it down anyway. They talk for a bit about the horse version of Bullseye, who loved running and jumping and getting into Andy's backpack and tasting whatever abandoned food sample that ended up in Andy's room. Kate assures him that the dog version of Bullseye is just as big of pig as the horse was.

All too soon the sun goes down. The trio is the last to leave park. They sit between their respective cars, taking their sweet time getting ready to leave.

"I almost forgot, tomorrow's Saturday."

She nudges him in the shoulder with her fist, back into teasing mode. "That meeting sure did take a lot out of you."

"No, I meant I've got another debriefing with Cyrus tomorrow."

He thinks he sees her stiffen a little at this. He chalks it up to the wind getting a bit cold.

"He called me today with a nice lecture about ditching him yesterday."

"Yesterday?"

"Yeah, we were supposed to talk yesterday, but then his secretary told me where you were and I sort of left to find you first and forgot to call him back." Mark can't help but sound a bit sheepish. Kate is smirking but doesn't look directly at him.

"So… he knows? About you and me?"

Mark shrugs. "I didn't really get to tell him. He takes his work really personally, y'know. So I was mostly trying just to apologize in those rare moments he decides to let me get a word in edgewise."

Kate nods in understanding. "He's kind of self-centered that way."

"I guess…"

"I'm meeting him tomorrow, too."

Mark had been hoping that was the case and struggles not to look too overjoyed. "We can tell him together, then. He's gonna go nuts when he finds out how we met…"

Kate looks a bit deflated. She bites down on her lower lip and he fights the army of bad conclusions springing up into his mind. "Maybe… maybe we shouldn't tell him just yet…"

"Why not?"

She rakes a hand through her hair, pulls as much of it as she can over her shoulder, twists the ends that are just long enough not to slip off over her finger. "It's just… they'll see it as their guinea pigs learning a new trick. They'll want to pick our brains and suck up all our time and knock us out again and I…" She pulls her hair through her fingers with surprising dexterity and all Mark wants to do is quiet her hands. "I… kind of like… being us, being this." She gestures between them with the hand not caught in her hair. "I love Buzz and Jessie, but… I kind of just want to be Mark and Kate for awhile, y'know…" Her voice trails off. Mark feels as if he should say something but his mind has gone blank and his throat is dry and it's suddenly gotten much too warm.

Bullseye barks, loud enough to cause his two human companions to jump. They try to sweep the awkward feeling the conversation has taken them under haphazard laughter while Kate ushers the dog into her car. Mark reaches for her hand and ends up gripping the car doorframe instead.

"Kate… we don't have to tell anybody anything… if you don't want to." It's wrong, somehow. Not sufficient. Not quite what he wanted to say to her. "I mean… I wouldn't mind being Mark and Kate for awhile, either…"

Then, all at once, she's flush against his chest, her arms flung over his shoulders and squeezing his neck and he's reminded once again that she's a bit too tall for him. He closes his eyes against her, the weight of her jacket and the softness of her hair and the feel of her ribcage as it rises to meet his hands with each breath. He knows he's blushing so badly he must look like a ripe cherry and he's vaguely glad the park's been cleared out for awhile. It's getting darker and colder but together they're warm and bright and perfect. And he thinks with whatever part of his brain that's still operational that for the first time in his life he feels whole.

XXXXXXXXXX

A/N: -I can't be the only one who saw Bullseye as the toy's pet dog stand-in. And even though he's technically "Woody's" horse I always saw him as belonging more to Jessie. They had a longer history together as established in the 2nd film and they seem to hang around each other more.

-Yes, Schadenfreude is a word, and that is what it actually means. I blame Avenue Q for teaching me that one ;)


End file.
